University Of Kwazulu Natal Forensic Science, Forensic Medicine receives numerous queries from various quarters regarding forensic training. Most of the enquiries are from scholars, university students themselves and also from persons working in various bio-medical fields. It is hoped that the following simple explanation will clarify what forensic training is all about and what we do in our department.
Incidentally, the word forensic is derived from the Latin word ”forum”, and means a bringing together of people to confer or decide upon a contentious matter. In a way it is comparable to what happens in a court of law.
Perhaps best said, there is no such thing as ‘forensic training’ proper, except for principles of forensics that are very basic and not really a subject on its own. A forensic science is an applied science, meaning that (very broadly-speaking) there is no such thing as pure forensic science. Which of the sciences can be ”forensic”? Just about any science can be a forensic science if it can have any application to justice or judicial matters. It is a very large ”umbrella” of expert fields. Any science that is applied to forensic work becomes a forensic science.
For example, using medicine (or pathology) to solve forensic issues is forensic medicine (or pathology). The study of the life cycles of insects (entomology) to help determine the time of death of a person found dead is forensic entomology. Ballistic knowledge used to solve issues regarding the use of a firearm in a case of shooting is forensic ballistics. Using psychology to help in the unmasking of a perpetrator of cases of serial killings is forensic psychology. Knowledge of chemistry used in a laboratory to detect traces of poisons or drugs in the body or in samples from crime and death scenes is forensic analytical chemistry or forensic toxicology. Accountants who investigate ”paper trails” to trace commercial crimes such as corruption use forensic auditing. The use of X-rays to forensic work such as the detection of bony injuries, bullets and for human identification is the field of forensic radiography. And so it goes ?
There are multiple other fields where this is similarly done, and includes forensic photography, forensic molecular biology (use of DNA ”fingerprinting”), forensic anthropology (human skeleton), forensic odontology (or forensic dentistry, where the teeth and even bite marks are used for identification of remains of people), etc. The list is not exhaustive.
For our purpose therefore, to be a forensic pathologist you have to qualify as a doctor first. To be a forensic nurse, you have to qualify as a nurse first. Simply stated, to train in forensic work requires an initial training completed in any science field to a level of practicing the competencies in that field. This varies between fields but usually one is expected to graduate in that field with a bachelor degree at honours level or a Masters degree at the least, before the candidate may be considered expert enough to apply this knowledge to forensic work.
For additional information, see Evidence and the Forensic Sciences
In conclusion, the discipline is in the College of Health Sciences, School of Laboratory Medicine & Medical Sciences and trains only medical, nursing and other health science students in forensic medical and health care work. Course work training programmes in forensic medicine and health care are available to medical and health graduate students, with a indispensable requirement of a basic knowledge of human anatomy and physiology. In addition, for postgraduate research in forensic medicine, we see only a possibility of graduates with anatomy and physiology being able to do any direct research projects.
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